One in every eleven persons born in Mexico has gone to the U.S. The National Review reported that in 2014 $1.87 billion was spent on incarcerating illegal immigrant criminals….Now add hundreds of billions for welfare and remittances! MICHAEL BARGO, Jr…… for the AMERICAN THINKER.COM

"These figures present a scathing indictment
of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country,
whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are
just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive
inequality and mass poverty

OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS TO SERVE THE SUPER RICH:

The slow and painful death of America that dominates
American society."

“This study follows
reports released over the past several months documenting rising mortality
rates among US workers due to drug addiction and suicide, high rates of infant
mortality, an overall leveling off of life expectancy, and a growing gap
between the life expectancy of the bottom rung of income earners compared to
those at the top.”

"The choice of debt-ridden Greece, Europe's worst economic basket case, was oddly appropriate as the location for the start of the swansong tour of the U.S. president who has produced as much American national debt in eight years as all previous American presidents had produced over a span of 220 years combined. "

Bookends to a Disastrous Presidency

To watch Barack Obama's pathetic final non-victory lap around the world this past week, one can't help but recall his stomach-churning "Apologize for America Tour" at the start of his administration. You'll recall that in April 2009, he went to Europe, which we sacrificed tens of thousands of American lives to liberate 70-plus years ago, and informed Europeans that America "has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" of Europe.

Last week, Mr. Obama could not resist the urge to dis his country once again, telling the "global community," again from a foreign shore, that in the age of the internet, nationalism (read: Donald Trump) is rearing its ugly head. "Faced with this new reality where cultures clash, it's inevitable that some will seek a comfort in nationalism or tribe or ethnicity or sect," he informed us from Athens. He reassured his audience that "American democracy is bigger than any one person." (Wink, wink, Donald.) Fittingly, he then went on to tour the ruins of ancient Greece, before flying off to Berlin to cry on the shoulder of his globalist soul mate, Angela Merkel, another leader looking at a potential uprising by her constituency, frightened by her insane immigration policies.

The choice of debt-ridden Greece, Europe's worst economic basket case, was oddly appropriate as the location for the start of the swansong tour of the U.S. president who has produced as much American national debt in eight years as all previous American presidents had produced over a span of 220 years combined. One must wonder if Mr. Obama views pauper Greece as the model America should emulate.

These two globetrotting tours by the man-child president expressing disdain for both his own country and the choices of its people seem the perfect bookends to Obama's presidency.

His is a presidency that will likely produce shudders for years to come for all sentient Americans who had the misfortune to live through it, but particularly for Democrats. It was a sheer disaster, both in terms of the reversals the Democrats will see in their policy initiatives and in the depth of Democratic Party political losses down to the state and local levels.

As for the Democrats' agenda, Marc Thiessen neatly summed it up in the Washington Post. Mr. Obama and his Democratic fan base (what is left of it) are going to learn how all of those "accomplishments" of his administration, achieved by means of presidential fiat in executive orders, executive actions, regulatory "guidance," and regulations, can be as easily undone by President Trump. Even the rare policy Obama bothered to have codified into law – albeit with zero bipartisan support – like the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") will be gratifyingly rescinded with the GOP controlling both houses of Congress and all polls showing either a majority or plurality of Americans hating it.

And make no mistake: the Democratic Party's political losses this past Election Day were enormous. Due to the decimation that has occurred of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party is arguably in the strongest position it has been in a century, if not longer. In addition to controlling the White House and both houses of the U.S. Congress, as reported by Real Clear Politics, the GOP now controls over two thirds of the 98 state legislative bodies across the country. Additionally, it has control of both the governorship and both state legislative chambers in 23 states, whereas the Democrats can say that of only seven states.

Ironically, Barack Obama turned out to be the greatest gift to the Republican Party since Confederate general George Pickett ordered his infantry to make a headlong charge across three quarters of a mile of open field against barricaded Union artillery. That blunder led to victory for the Union army at Gettysburg and in turn to ultimate victory for our Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, in the Civil War.

Obama's obtuseness in recognizing how a majority of Americans feel about him, his policies, and the Democratic Party he represents continues unabated, despite the shellacking his agenda took on Election Day. He's just the gift that keeps on giving, which he demonstrated in another talk, again on foreign soil.

When asked by reporters if he would adhere to George W. Bush's decision not to criticize his successor's policy choices, Mr. Obama suggested that he will not remain silent as Mr. Trump pursues his own policy course. "As an American citizen who cares deeply about our country," Mr. Obama intoned last weekend in Lima, Peru, "if there are issues that have less to do with the specifics of some legislative proposal or battle or go to core questions about our values and ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, I'll examine it when it comes." Translation for us rubes: "I'll be screaming from the peanut gallery."

How noble of him. It is just this sort of hubris – this failure to recognize that we do not want to hear from him anymore – that drove Americans crazy and to the polls to throw Hillary Clinton (Barack Obama in a pantsuit) into the political abyss two weeks ago.

I say to Mr. Obama: bring it on. Your constant hectoring of the American people for the last eight years about what American values supposedly are (if I hear that "that's not who we are" line one more time, I may slit my wrists) repulses us. Your professorial sneering and snide comments toward Middle America from your earliest days of campaigning for president grated on us like fingernails on a chalkboard. Who can forget that immortal quote in ad-libbed comments made by Mr. Obama to the Democratic cognoscenti in San Francisco way back in 2008, that Americans in Pennsylvania – you know, one of those "toss-up" states that (shockingly!) went for Donald Trump – are people who just "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations"? Gotta love that down-home feel he has for us regular 'Mericans.

When asked by the New Yorker's David Remnick what he told his daughters following his party's massive defeat on Election Day, Mr. Obama said he actually told his children (I am not making this up) that his fellow American citizens are "living organisms" who are "messy." Yes, that's what we are, Professor Obama. Just icky microbes in a Petri dish to be studied and manipulated by brilliant Democratic thinkers like you. If we don't appreciate your genius, well – pfff – we just don't, since we are only one-celled amoebae, after all. Can't pack a whole lotta thinkin' in that little gelatinous blob, now, can we?

So let us hope that Mr. Obama keeps to his word and yelps about every policy President Trump chooses to enact, or every Obama executive order he decides to repeal. That pompous nattering will remind everyday Americans just why, on November 8, 2016, they rejected his party and their candidates lock, stock, and barrel.

Yes, just keeping talking, Mr. Obama. You'll ensure that the Republicans hold a solid majority of political offices across the country for the next 30 years – at least.

William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government and private sector for 30 years. Presently he is a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc. (The views expressed are the author's alone and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.)

24 November 2016

On October 3, 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation authored by Secretary of State William H. Seward declaring the last Thursday of November “a day of thanksgiving.”

Despite a Civil War of “unequalled magnitude and severity,” the declaration stated, the conflict had not “arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship,” while “the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.” The proclamation concluded, “The country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.”

The ravages of the Civil War would last another year and a half. Nevertheless, it was true that society was being transformed by railroads, steamboats and the telegraph, an expansion in productive capacity that would accelerate with the rapid industrialization fostered by the Second American Revolution. The Civil War would clear the way for capitalist progress—and the explosive growth of the class struggle—by abolishing slavery.

As families throughout the United States gather to share a meal this Thanksgiving, relatively few will agree with Seward’s assessment that the country can expect “years with large increase of freedom.” Rather, for many, Thanksgiving will serve only to underline the economic hardship and oppression they face.

More than one in eight households will have had difficulty putting food on the table the year before, and millions will have a Thanksgiving meal only by standing in line at a food pantry or soup kitchen.

Over a million-and-a-half people were homeless last year, including some 300,000 children and 450,000 disabled people. Millions more live in substandard housing, doubled up with other families, or in motels. Such conditions may affect only a minority of American families directly. But the great majority of the population is economically insecure.

Forty-six percent of adults are so financially strapped that “they either could not cover an emergency expense costing $400, or would cover it by selling something or borrowing money,” according to a survey released by the Federal Reserve this year.

Under these circumstances, the announcement that the average premium under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), supposedly designed to insure lower-income people, will increase 25 percent next year means that millions will either lose their health coverage or face hundreds, or even thousands of dollars in additional expenses.

The terrific stress caused by living in households one accident or illness away from financial ruin, in which young people are burdened by debt and face narrowing prospects, while the elderly confront rising medical costs and decreasing retirement benefits, produces many signs of social distress.

The brutality of this society, compounded by militarism and police violence, falls hardest on the young. One study has found that the prevalence of serious depression among teenagers increased by 37 percent between 2005 and 2014. Another reported that children from 10 through 14 are for the first time more likely to die from suicide than froma car accident.

Perhaps the most devastating manifestation of the social malaise is America’s drug epidemic. This year, a shocking 28,000 people will die from opioid overdose, almost as many as the number killed in car accidents. For tens of thousands of families, Thanksgiving will be a time of mourning for those who have lost their lives to heroin, fentanyl or prescription painkillers.

Many of the states most affected by the drug epidemic are those worst hit by joblessness and deindustrialization. Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the “rust belt” states that backed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 but swung behind Donald Trump in the 2016 election, all saw their rates of opiate overdose increase by more than 10 percent between 2013 and 2014.

The social crisis in the United States is fueling an immense growth of oppositional sentiment, including significant signs of renewed class struggle and political radicalization that found only initial expression in the elections. This came first in the widespread support during the Democratic primaries for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who called himself a socialist and denounced the “billionaire class” and social inequality.

Sanders’ “political revolution” concluded ignominiously with an endorsement of Hillary Clinton, who ran on the claim that, in the words of President Obama, America is doing “pretty darn great.” The implication of this delusional narrative was that those who disagreed and were swayed by Republican candidate Donald Trump’s demagogic appeals to social discontent were part of the “white racist working class,” seeking to defend their “privileged” status against blacks and other minorities. Basing her campaign on various forms of identity politics, Clinton pitched her appeal to the affluent and complacent. The result was a sharp decline in votes for the Democratic candidate within all sections of the working class.

Trump, who is being installed in the White House with the blessings of the outgoing president and both parties, will not “make America great again.” Neither he nor any section of the ruling class has a solution to the social crisis gripping America. His “America first” economic nationalism will exacerbate the global capitalist crisis and mean sharper attacks on workers within the United States. His program of tax cuts for the wealthy, the elimination of regulations on corporations, cuts in social programs and an immense increase in military spending will fuel social discontent and anger.

Trump’s election marks a turning point in the looming showdown between the financial parasites he personifies and the great mass of the population, the working class.

By Kate Randall 19 November 2016

One in seven Americans will become addicted to drugs or alcohol in their lifetimes, but only 10 percent of those affectedwill ever receive any help in treating their addictions. These are some of the grim statistics provided in a new report released Thursday by the US surgeon general and the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health” reports that over 27 million people in the United States reported current use of illicit drugs or misuse of prescription drugs in 2015, and over 66 million people reported binge drinking in the past month.

The victims of this health and societal crisis are the tens of thousands of lives lost and ruined each year due to substance misuse. Substance addiction cuts across all segments of society, but has hit rural communities, the deindustrialized Rust Belt and impoverished areas of Appalachia particularly hard.

Alcohol misuse contributes to 88,000 deaths in the US every year; 1 in 10 deaths among working adults is due to alcohol misuse. In 2014, there were 47,055 drug overdose deaths, including 28,647 people who died from a drug overdose involving some type of opioid, more than in any previous year on record.

The report uses the term “misuse” as opposed to “abuse” in an effort to remove some of the stigma of addiction to encourage and facilitate treatment.

While the US spends more than any other country on health care, it ranks 27th in life expectancy, at a time when life expectancy continues to increase in other developed countries. The report notes that this disparity in life expectancy “is largely due to substance misuse and associated physical and mental health problems.”

The report points to recent research showing an unprecedented increase in mortality among middle-aged white Americans between 1999 and 2014 that was largely driven by alcohol and drug misuse and suicides, although this trend was not witnessed in other racial and ethnic populations.

In 2014, 9,967 people were killed in motor vehicle accidents in the US while driving under the influence of alcohol, accounting for nearly one third of all traffic-related fatalities. While there are approximately 1.3 million arrests for driving under the influence each year, this number represents only about 1 percent of the actual alcohol-impaired driving incidents reported in national surveys.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports more than 2,200 alcohol overdose (alcohol poisoning) deaths in the US each year, an average of six a day. More than three quarters of alcohol overdose deaths occur among adults between the ages of 35 and 64, and 76 percent who die are men.

In 2014, 47,055 drug overdose deaths occurred in the US, with 61 percent of these the result of opioid use, including prescription opioids and heroin. The number of people dying from opioid overdoses increased nearly fourfold between 1999 and 2014.

The report notes that the over-prescription of opioid pain relievers beginning in the 1990s has led to a rapid escalation of their use and misuse among a wide demographic of men and women across the US. The use of opioids is so widespread that more people use prescription opioids (38 percent) than all tobacco products combined (31 percent).

Nearly 30,000 people died due to a heroin or prescription opioid overdose in 2014, and an estimated 20,000 died as a result of an unintentional overdose of alcohol, cocaine, or non-opioid prescription drugs.

The illegal manufacturing and distribution of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which are often combined with heroin or distributed as heroin, are contributing to the rapid increase in opioid overdose deaths.

Alcohol and drug misuse have numerous longer-term effects on physical and mental health. Heavy drinking can lead to hypertension, liver disease and certain cancers; regular marijuana use is associated with chronic bronchitis; and use of stimulants such as cocaine can lead to heart disease.

Alcohol and substance misuse during pregnancy can result in long lasting health effects for the baby. Alcohol misuse can cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), resulting in physical, mental and behavioral problems in children. It is estimated that FASDs affect as many as 2 to 5 percent of the population. The opioid crisis has resulted in a fivefold increase in the number of babies dependent on opioids at birth.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) found that among the more than 265 million Americans aged 12 and over in 2015, almost 8 percent of this population met diagnostic criteria for a substance use disorder for alcohol or illicit drugs. Another 1 percent met the criteria for both an alcohol and illicit drug use disorder.

Although 20.8 million people met the diagnostic criteria for a substance use disorder in 2015, only 2.2 million of them received any type of treatment. The surgeon general’s report is short on answers as to why this is the case.

The report includes a chapter on “The Neurobiology of Substance Use, Misuse, and Addiction,” which describes the three main circuits in the brain involved in addiction, and explains how substance use can “hijack” the normal functioning of these circuits.

“Understanding this transformation in the brain is critical to understanding why addiction is a health condition, not a moral failing or character flaw,” the authors note. They also point to medications that have proven useful in treating both drug and alcohol addiction, but which have been often overlooked and under-prescribed.

The surgeon general’s report recommends health professionals act on this research in their treatment of those suffering from addiction. However, the fact that 90 percent of those in need of treatment never receive it—and addiction and overdose deaths continue to skyrocket—points to deeper economic and social factors. This includes the lack of funding for alcohol and drug misuse treatment at federal, state and local level, leading to those in need often ending up in the prison system instead of in treatment.

Recognizing the role of poverty, unemployment and other life stresses as contributing factors to addiction, the surgeon general’s report recommends initiatives to provide affordable housing, job training and recovery support to “address the risk and protective factors that are most actionable at the local level.”

Arguing that “the health care system alone cannot address all of the major determinants of health related to substance misuse,” the authors recommend rallying “community-based organizations, religious institutions, law enforcement, local businesses, researchers and other public, private, and voluntary entities” to tackle the crisis.

Under conditions where austerity and budget cuts can only be expected to deepen under the future Trump administration, such band-aid prescriptions offer little hope to the tens of millions suffering from addiction, many of whom face a future of increased health problems, overdose and death.

Top 0.7 Percent of World’s Population Controls $116.6 Trillion of Wealth

During the age of Obama, the rich have gotten richer and the poor, far poorer, according to a survey of the world’s wealth.

Swiss bank Credit Suisse has released its 2016 review of the world’s wealth, showing that during the last six years, the control of wealth at the top has become more concentrated, while earners at the bottom who are worth less than $10,000 have not only become a larger pool of people, but have also lost wealth.

The most recent review shows that nearly half the world’s wealth — or about $255 trillion, which makes up 45.6 percent of the world’s wealth — is owned by a mere 0.7 percent of the world’s population. Meanwhile, 73.2 percent of the world only holds about $6 trillion of the world’s wealth, according to ZeroHedge.com.

But a previous Credit Suisse review from 2010 revealed that the top wealthiest people, which then made up only 0.5 percent of the world’s population, owned a far lower $69.2 trillion of the world’s wealth. In that same year, 68.4 percent of the world’s citizens owned a larger $8.2 trillion in wealth.

The previous review also revealed that the middle classes lost ground since 2010.

The middle classes took a huge hit between 2010 and 2016. Citizens worth between $10,000 and $100,000 have shrunk from the 2010 number of 1,045 million people (or 23.5 percent of the world’s population) to the much lower number of 897 million (18.5 percent of the people) this year.

Meanwhile, the upper middle class seemed relatively static. In 2010, 334 million people (7.5 percent of the population) were worth up to a million dollars. By this latest review, 365 million people (also 7.5 percent of the population) were worth as much.

The Credit Suisse report also found that 41 percent of all the world’s citizens worth at least a million dollars live in the United States. Only Japan and the United Kingdom came close with nine percent and seven percent, respectively, of the world’s population worth up to a million dollars.

The list of ultra high net worth-level (UHNW) individuals is also dominated by Americans. Fifty-two 52 percent of all the world’s UHNW individuals live in the U.S. By contrast, it takes all of Europe to equal the next 21 percent of these very wealthy people.

It does not appear that President Barack Obama’s polices helped the poor and middle classes get ahead. Instead, the rich have fared extremely well in the era of Obama, while everyone else has lost ground.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.

"At one point she
hailed the “record profits” of the auto companies. She did not mention that
these profits came at the expense of the jobs, wages and retirement benefits of
thousands of auto workers, decimated under the terms of the auto bailout
organized by the Obama administration."

THE
TWISTED ROAD TO REVOLUTION CAME DOWN WALL STREET FIRST

OBAMA
–CLINTONOMICS FOR THE SUPER RICH

"Between 2002 and 2015 annual
earnings for the bottom 90 percent of Americans rose by

only 4.5 percent, while earnings for the top 1 percent grew by 22.7
percent, according to the

Economic Policy Institute. Under the Obama administration, more than 90
percent of

income gains since the so-called “recovery” began have gone to the top one
percent."

“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike,
has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes.
This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen
McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com

THE GIG ECONOMY

As Barack Obama invites hordes to jump our borders jobs, welfare
offices and voting booths…. WHAT IS LEFT FOR THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS HE HATES
SO MUCH?

Wikileaks exposes Obama's Crony Bankster Corruption!

BARACK OBAMA AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF CRONY BANKSTER LOOTING…. And not one
went to prison!

FOR 8 YEARS BARACK OBAMA’S BANKSTER CRONIES AT CITIGROUP RULED
AMERICA’S ECONOMY AND LOOTED IT INTO A DEPRESSION

“Citigroup’s
recommendations came just three days after then-President George W.
Bush signed into law the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which
allocated $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue the largest
Wall Street banks. The single biggest beneficiary was Citigroup,
which was given $45 billion in cash in the form of a government
stock purchase, plus a $306 billion government guarantee to back up
its worthless mortgage-related assets.”

“As president, Obama not
only funneled trillions of dollars to the banks, he saw to it that not a
single leading Wall Street executive faced prosecution for

the orgy of speculation and
swindling that led to the financial collapse and Great Recession, and
he personally intervened to block legislation capping

executive pay at bailed-out
firms.”

“So
when Clinton was hobnobbing with Goldman Sachs CEO Blankfein in 2013,
while investigations of wrongdoing by Goldman and the other
Wall Street banks were still ongoing, she was consorting with a man
who belonged in prison.”

HOW MEXICO KILLED AMERICA FROM BORDER to OPEN
BORDER…. By invitation of the Democrat Party

“The
response to the publication of these speeches by so-called “socialist” Bernie Sanders
exposes the utterly fraudulent character of his entire presidential bid.
While he postured during the Democratic Party primaries as a
proponent of a “political revolution” against the “billionaire class,” Sanders now functions shamelessly
as a sideshow for the Clinton campaign, browbeating his (now much
smaller) audiences with admonitions to vote for the preferred candidate of
the “billionaire class” he claimed to oppose.”

"He (Trump) is able to get a
hearing because millions of people are being driven into
economic insecurity and poverty while the rich and
the super-rich continue to amass obscene levels
of wealth. He is able with some success to divert mass discontent
along reactionary nationalist and racialist channels precisely
because what passes for the “left” in American politics,
anchor by the Democratic Party, has moved ever further
to the right, culminating in the Obama administration which
has presided over endless war and an unprecedented redistribution of
wealth from the bottom to the top of the economic ladder."

“The couple parlayed lives supposedly spent in “public service”
into admission into the upper stratosphere of American wealth, with incomes in
the top 0.1 percent bracket. The source of this vast wealth was a political
machine that might well be dubbed “Clinton, Inc.” This consists essentially of
a seedy money-laundering operation to ensure big business support for the
Clintons’ political ambitions as well as their personal fortunes. The basic
components of the operation are lavishly paid speeches to Wall Street and
Fortune 500 audiences, corporate campaign contributions, and donations to the
ostensibly philanthropic Clinton Foundation.”

HSBC laundered hundreds of millions
and perhaps billions of dollars for drug cartels responsible for the
deaths of tens of thousands of people over the past two decades. The
bank transferred at least $881 million of known drug trafficking proceeds, including money from the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, which is known for
dismembering its victims and publicly displaying their body parts.

HILLARY, BILLARY and the OBOMB: Were they America’s
biggest looters?

OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS:

You were wondering how many jobs went to illegals
and how well Obama’s crony banksters have done???

The sputtering economic recovering under President Obama,
the last to follow a major recession, has fallen way short of the average
recovery and ranks as the worst since the 1930s Great Depression, according to
a new report.

Had the recovery under Obama been the average of the 11
since the Depression, according to the report, family incomes would be $17,000
higher, six million fewer Americans would be in poverty, and there would be six
million more jobs.